The disclosures herein relate generally to information handling systems and more particularly to multi-processor information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems such as portable computers have experienced significant increases in performance over the years. One factor that influences the performance of portable computers is the clock speed of the processor. Since the late 1980's when processor clock speed was in the low Megahertz range, clock speed has now increased to the Gigahertz range. Unfortunately, as clock speed has increased, so has the amount of heat generated by the processor. Dissipation of heat is limited by the size of the information handling system. With portable computers, size is an especially significant constraint. Moreover, the trend is toward even smaller and lighter portable computers and this exacerbates the heat dissipation problem. As clock speed continues to rise, it will become increasingly difficult to remove heat generated by the processor in a portable computer with a specific volume.
Docking systems are known in which a portable computer or other information handling system is inserted into a docking station. The docking station can take the form of a port replicator which mates with the computer and passes I/O signals to common connectors to provide easy connection to a keyboard, pointing device, video monitor and other I/O devices. Beyond the simple signal “pass-through” provided by port replicators, more advanced docking stations are known that accept peripherals such as video cards, modems and multi-media cards therein. However, docking stations can actually place more of a cooling burden on a portable computer because airflow around the portable computer is often decreased when the computer is docked. Moreover, such conventional docking solutions do not increase the computational power of the processor in the portable computer.
Therefore, What is needed is a way to increase the processing power available in a portable computer system without causing significant additional burdensome cooling requirements.